1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a container used to store, warm to above ambient temperatures and dispense moistened sheets of paper or cloth disposable wipes for personal use.
2. Description of Related Art
With a typical moistened wipe in a prepackaged container, the wipe usually contains a solution which has some evaporative qualities and upon contact with the air outside the container, the wipe will immediately and continually tend to drop in temperature until it contacts the skin. Upon contact with the skin, the wipe creates a cool sensation on the skin both from transfer of heat from the skin to the wipe and from the evaporation of the solution from the skin once the wipe has transferred a quantity of the solution onto the skin. This is of more particular concern when the situation involves using a wipe on an infant. The surprise of the cooler sensation often times is evident from various reactions of the infant. Some caretakers have found it less stressful on the infant by first applying the wipe to their own skin in order to increase the temperature of the wipe, but this can be both a contamination source and a consumption of time in a process in which both the caretaker and infant would prefer to minimize.
There have been several attempts to address this problem, for example in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,943,705, 5,004,894, 5,738,082, and 7,022,945. Even where such prior art employs a chemical heat source, there have been deficiencies in performance and heating of wipes using the disclosed containers. They in general have not been economical or simple to use, and do not provide optimum performance from the chemical heat source.